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Topic: The Demo (Read 5494 times)

The Demo

So, as mentioned in a previous topic, here's the remastered Demo (or rather, its current state). Keep in mind that it wasn't 100% complete, but it should be all playable.In the package you will find the remastered Demo missions, new interface art, backgrounds, the HTL GVI Cairo, and HTL GTFf Saphah.

Re: The Demo

Pretty thing all in all; I'd recommend to play it. 1 or 2 small bugs are in, but nothing really show stopping. I think it's fine, given the interruptions that happened during development. I can give detailed feedback in case that it might be useful at some future point.

Re: The Demo

The Cairo is a super-super beautiful ship, but the textures seem unoptimized. It has by far the largest set of textures (size-wise) I've ever seen (322mb, even larger than the BP models), and I've seen hundreds of models. The only other ship with a single 67mb texture was a Vasudan Gasminer which had 8k maps. I don't know how that effects the speed of the game, but on one of the FSO builts I tried it crashed the F3 techroom (but worked elseway).Also, there's a problem with the offset of the dockpoints. The Argo in M2 is partitially inside the Cairo.

The techroom entries for the new ships (Cairo, Saphah) don't have their quotation remarks removed, so they'll be overwritten.

Looking into the missions, there's always a fiction file specified (BWODemo_Fic-0x.txt), but none is actually present.

None of the missions has a "No RTB"-debriefing stage. Due VA, maybe it's possible to take one from straight from the FS2 main or some other voiced campaign?

Writing wise, the story already knows what will happen next. In M2-DB, there's already a "Scion of Vasuda", while the M2-CB only mentions that Ahmose used the word "Scion" in one of his speeches, with the rebellion only formally breaking out in M3; the name only becomes official in M3-DB/M4-CB.

There's no mv_shp_exp_flashes.cfg for the custom ships (OK, there are only 3 new classes but still), so they'll die without the typical death flash. Probably custom weapons are effected too.

M1

The Khnum sends the message "But the Khnum...", according to message name it should be Alpha 2.

M2

MAJOR ISSUE: The Leuneburg sometimes misses the Vasudan Corvette after a while, and the mission goes completely standstill.

Due to the campaign conditions, it is impossible to proceed if the Lupin got destroyed, however, there's nothing in the mission that gives you the signal "you can basically restart now".

If I simply ignore the order to escort the Lupin it'll get destroyed before the Leuneburg will arrive, causing the message "The GTT Lupin has been lost. We're pulling out, pilots. Charging drives now." to be send from Command. The mission continues nevertheless, including Leuneburg arrival.

The goal "Escort Reckoner to Alexandria Station" becomes true when the ship jumps out. "Ensure the safety of the crew of the GTT Reckoner" would be more fitting.

For some reason I receive the RTB "Leuneburg destroyed" even when the ship is intact at the end of the mission (it just didn't depart).

M3

MAJOR ISSUE: For some reason I'm forced to jump out randomly (happened to me once). Looking at the SEXP, it seems that failing the mission seems to trigger this, but I don't see the reason for using this at that point instead of a normal RTB-dir.

There's no directive to destroy the fighter wings. Maybe not the main task, but it's important how many fighters can interfere with your bombing run.

There's also no dir for the fighters attacking later.

M4

The Hapti is literally inside the Vasudan destroyer...

No directives for fighters/bombers.

1 thing: Even if the destroyer is just under construction, I don't know if an Isis can carry enough crew and marines to capture it.

When I just jump out, I receive a Vas. Destroyer captured/Leuneburg destroyed DB.

The Cairo is a super-super beautiful ship, but the textures seem unoptimized. It has by far the largest set of textures (size-wise) I've ever seen (322mb, even larger than the BP models), and I've seen hundreds of models. The only other ship with a single 67mb texture was a Vasudan Gasminer which had 8k maps. I don't know how that effects the speed of the game, but on one of the FSO builts I tried it crashed the F3 techroom (but worked elseway).Also, there's a problem with the offset of the dockpoints. The Argo in M2 is partitially inside the Cairo.

The techroom entries for the new ships (Cairo, Saphah) don't have their quotation remarks removed, so they'll be overwritten.

Looking into the missions, there's always a fiction file specified (BWODemo_Fic-0x.txt), but none is actually present.

None of the missions has a "No RTB"-debriefing stage. Due VA, maybe it's possible to take one from straight from the FS2 main or some other voiced campaign?

Writing wise, the story already knows what will happen next. In M2-DB, there's already a "Scion of Vasuda", while the M2-CB only mentions that Ahmose used the word "Scion" in one of his speeches, with the rebellion only formally breaking out in M3; the name only becomes official in M3-DB/M4-CB.

There's no mv_shp_exp_flashes.cfg for the custom ships (OK, there are only 3 new classes but still), so they'll die without the typical death flash. Probably custom weapons are effected too.

M1

The Khnum sends the message "But the Khnum...", according to message name it should be Alpha 2.

M2

MAJOR ISSUE: The Leuneburg sometimes misses the Vasudan Corvette after a while, and the mission goes completely standstill.

Due to the campaign conditions, it is impossible to proceed if the Lupin got destroyed, however, there's nothing in the mission that gives you the signal "you can basically restart now".

If I simply ignore the order to escort the Lupin it'll get destroyed before the Leuneburg will arrive, causing the message "The GTT Lupin has been lost. We're pulling out, pilots. Charging drives now." to be send from Command. The mission continues nevertheless, including Leuneburg arrival.

The goal "Escort Reckoner to Alexandria Station" becomes true when the ship jumps out. "Ensure the safety of the crew of the GTT Reckoner" would be more fitting.

For some reason I receive the RTB "Leuneburg destroyed" even when the ship is intact at the end of the mission (it just didn't depart).

M3

MAJOR ISSUE: For some reason I'm forced to jump out randomly (happened to me once). Looking at the SEXP, it seems that failing the mission seems to trigger this, but I don't see the reason for using this at that point instead of a normal RTB-dir.

There's no directive to destroy the fighter wings. Maybe not the main task, but it's important how many fighters can interfere with your bombing run.

There's also no dir for the fighters attacking later.

M4

The Hapti is literally inside the Vasudan destroyer...

No directives for fighters/bombers.

1 thing: Even if the destroyer is just under construction, I don't know if an Isis can carry enough crew and marines to capture it.

When I just jump out, I receive a Vas. Destroyer captured/Leuneburg destroyed DB.

That's quite extensive and detailed (good!)Regarding the odd quirks\bugs, keep in mind that this was all done in about a month, with almost no testing, it's in no way 100% complete. Nevertheless it's something to be sorted at a later date, if BWO comes out of hybernation someday. I believe that the forced jump-outs were Spoon's solution to go around the lack of RTB VA in case of failure and etc. We chose to work around what we had in terms of VA, meaning that no new messages could be added and etc. In hindsight perhaps that was a bad choice (should've just botched the VA we already had and free up the mission chatter more). Spoon actually worked miracles under this constraint, in terms of making the missions make more sense. (Don't know if you played the old Demo, but if you play it and this one back to back, you can definitely see the difference)

About the assets: guilty as charged. We never got to the point of worrying about certain details like the ones you mentioned, like for example texture compression, hence the file sizes. In development, it's always better to have textures as high-res as possible, with minimal compression, and later we can downsize.I have no idea what you mean regarding the tech entries' quotation marks, though? They show correctly on my end.

About the plot stuff: Actually the Scion has been around for a while, and the GTVA knows it, even if the rebellion hasn't come out publicly yet. It had a very slow build up: the hints are in FS2 (this is the same Ahmose that ignored orders to not engage the Iceni in the SOC loop), and in Twilight (the renegade Vasudan fleet that attacks the Morgain). So the GTVA knowing about it, and the Scion announcing itself publicaly are supposed to be two different things.About capturing a destroyer with an Isis transport... well, yeah Although I always thought that again, the answer was already given in the previous missions: the Scion already has many supporters and agents infiltrated in the GTVA, and we know that the way they captured the Khnum so easily was by spacing everyone inside instead of a direct confrontation, for example. I always assumed that they employed similar tactics on the Kauket. Or the Kauket's crew was simply very amenable to the Scion's views. We don't know for sure, and that's the point. Actually a thing about BWO's plot in general is that many things are supposed to be hinted at or vaguely implied, rather than expressed directly. We want the player to second guess what's going on, nothing is true and there are several points of view that the player must work out on his own. There are a couple of big choices to be made, and we want to stay away from a "good choice\bad choice" frame of mind. Everyone sucks in some way or another, but also everyone has a point.

Re: The Demo

Well, I read the posts before so I'm commenting on what has been shipped instead of any communication issues inside the Dev team or anything else. So I thought "write everything down you come across", for there might be other players experiencing the same thing.

the answer was already given in the previous missions: the Scion already has many supporters and agents infiltrated in the GTVA, and we know that the way they captured the Khnum so easily was by spacing everyone inside instead of a direct confrontation, for example. I always assumed that they employed similar tactics on the Kauket. Or the Kauket's crew was simply very amenable to the Scion's views. We don't know for sure, and that's the point.

Probably this could be adressed by adding the missing fiction files someday (doesn't require VA)? Also, maybe it would be useful to write some sort of primer saying "BWO is like that, so keep your eyes open"? Because

Actually a thing about BWO's plot in general is that many things are supposed to be hinted at or vaguely implied, rather than expressed directly. We want the player to second guess what's going on, nothing is true and there are several points of view that the player must work out on his own. There are a couple of big choices to be made, and we want to stay away from a "good choice\bad choice" frame of mind. Everyone sucks in some way or another, but also everyone has a point.

sounds like a really interesting approach to me, yet it could be misunderstood (as I obviously managed to do), what would be sad.

Re: The Demo

Well, I read the posts before so I'm commenting on what has been shipped instead of any communication issues inside the Dev team or anything else. So I thought "write everything down you come across", for there might be other players experiencing the same thing.

Probably this could be adressed by adding the missing fiction files someday (doesn't require VA)? Also, maybe it would be useful to write some sort of primer saying "BWO is like that, so keep your eyes open"? Because sounds like a really interesting approach to me, yet it could be misunderstood (as I obviously managed to do), what would be sad.

I actually have no idea why those fiction files references exist. There were no plans on having fiction entries on the demo. So I don't know, perhaps Spoon added them just in case?

There would be a "you're GTVI now, keep your eyes open" line in the first mission post-demo, as well as characters questioning things as a prompt to pay attention. Or events that show that something else might be going on. Other than that, I feel it would be too forceful. I mean, if a player is naturally inclined to pay attention, cool. If not, the player can still enjoy the bare-bones, superficial story. Kind of like watching Westworld: some viewers understand what's happening way before the reveals (and of course, many things are still left in the open by the end of it, there's a lot of ambiguity that you can mitigate by paying attention, but not all), others just chill and go along for the ride, so they only understand what's going on as the reveals are made, superficially, and even then many things are open to interpretation.

Re: The Demo

I actually have no idea why those fiction files references exist. There were no plans on having fiction entries on the demo. So I don't know, perhaps Spoon added them just in case?

Probably that. The rest was just an idea I had that this could add some plot to the demo without changing the voice acting. I obviously don't know how the plot is related to the rest of the campaign, but so far it seems like a rather generic story - basicly a Vasudan NTF, with Ahmose as Bosch clone. This might be unfair, but having foreshadowing/mystery as narrative style is hard to built up in 4 mission. Also, the Demo pretty much everything one knows about, what might should be taken into account.

Another thing could be to add the fiction things from the website to the techroom and leave some remark at the end of the campaign (i.e. M4-DB) that they can be read now; for the website is still down, and I think the chance that people read it then is higher.

I thought there might be stuff happening elsewhere - maybe Ahmose telling something (or his speeches)? Some Vasudan policeman liking Ahmose being forced to shoot some of his followers? Just ideas of course.

There would be a "you're GTVI now, keep your eyes open" line in the first mission post-demo, as well as characters questioning things as a prompt to pay attention. Or events that show that something else might be going on. Other than that, I feel it would be too forceful. I mean, if a player is naturally inclined to pay attention, cool. If not, the player can still enjoy the bare-bones, superficial story. Kind of like watching Westworld: some viewers understand what's happening way before the reveals (and of course, many things are still left in the open by the end of it, there's a lot of ambiguity that you can mitigate by paying attention, but not all), others just chill and go along for the ride, so they only understand what's going on as the reveals are made, superficially, and even then many things are open to interpretation.

Awww, that's the kind of story I love to write; but always when I play something like that I'm usually missing the point.

I don't see a direct explination in the log. 2 ideas: the only HUD related thing in the entire demo is the Hud_Gauges.tbl.1st. Change the first line at the top "$Load Retail Configuration: No" to Yes.2nd. If that doesn't work, rename the file to tblxy.

Re: The Demo

Well there was some incident few days ago with, ehm... unrequested suggestions (not by me), causing the thread to go completely off-topic (on the JAD board), that's why I thought "that's a release thread after all, so +1 for the cautious side".

Ok, one final thing that comes to my mind, though... Is there a chance to get the Minerva back in? I'm sure such a fighter with variable geometry would be really cool as black-ops elite fighter, you could mount some gadgets under the cockpit (fighterbeam, jamming/AWACS device, missiles, whatever)...